Arundhati Roy Says India Is Headed For A Crash

Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, while speaking at the launch of the book "Why do you fear my way so much?, a selection of poems and letters by jailed human rights activist GN Saibaba", compared "India of today" to a plane moving in reverse and claimed that it was "headed for a crash".

Here are the key takeaways from Arundhati Roy's speech :

• She said that from leaders in 1960s used to spearhead "revolutionary movements" for redistribution of wealth and land. However, now they are seeking votes and winning elections by distributing "5 kg rice and 1 kg salt".
• "Recently, I asked a pilot friend of mine, 'Can you fly a plane backwards?' He laughed out loud. I said "this is exactly what is happening here". She further added that the leaders of this country are flying the plane in reverse, everything is falling, and we are headed for a crash.
• She explained how laws are applied differently in India depending on your "caste, class, gender and ethnicity".

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More on GN Saibaba

GN Saibaba was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 by a sessions court in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district. Reason? It was on the charge of having Maoist links and engaging in activities amounting to "waging war against the country". He was held guilty under the stringent anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. At present, he has over 90 percent physical disabilities and he uses a wheelchair.  His services as an assistant professor at Delhi University's Ram Lal Anand College were terminated on March 31 in 2021.

"What are we doing here today? We are meeting to talk about a professor who is paralyzed 90 percent and has been in jail for seven years. That is what we are doing. That is enough. We do not have to speak anymore. That is enough to tell you what kind of country we are living in. What shame is this," she said, as per a report.

More about Arundhati Roy

Suzanna Arundhati Roy is an Indian author and a political activist. She is best known for her novel The God of Small Things. it  won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author.